Where is our family trust resident if the trustees live apart?
Residence follows where the trust is actually managed, not where the deed was signed or where the professional trustee has its office. If the substantive decisions are taken by one person in one country while co-trustees elsewhere approve what has already been settled, that is where management sits, and the paperwork will not say otherwise. This matters because it decides which country taxes the trust's income and gains, and what the beneficiaries have to report. Where trustees are genuinely spread, the answer is to make the decision-making real and to record it: agendas, papers circulated in advance, discussion, and minutes that show a decision being reached rather than ratified.
Does a family office need real staff where it is based?
If it is expected to hold treaty positions or to be resident where it is registered, yes. The tests that decide both look for people with the authority and the competence to take the decisions the entity is credited with. An office that exists as an address, with instructions arriving from a family member in another country, does not satisfy them. Substance is not measured by headcount alone; it is the match between the functions an entity is said to perform and the people who are actually there to perform them. Decide what the entity is for, then resource it accordingly, rather than resourcing it afterwards to defend a position.
Who reports what when family members live in different countries?
Reporting follows each individual's own residence, so one structure can produce several different obligations from the same set of facts. A holding a member has to disclose in one country may be invisible in another, and a distribution that is reportable for one sibling may not be for the next. This is the part families most often get wrong, because they assume the structure has a single reporting position. Build the map person by person: for each member, their residence, what they hold or benefit from, and what their own country requires. Revisit it whenever anyone moves, marries or takes up a directorship.
Do board meetings held abroad decide where a company is resident?
Only if the decisions are genuinely taken at them. The test looks at where central management and control actually lies, and a meeting is evidence of that rather than a substitute for it. Directors flown in to sign resolutions drafted elsewhere do not move anything; the country where the instructions originate is the country with the better claim. What helps is unglamorous: directors who can explain the decisions, papers circulated before the meeting, alternatives considered, and minutes that record reasoning. What harms is a pattern of signature-only meetings, particularly where the same family member's email precedes every one of them.
Can our family holding company claim treaty benefits on dividends?
That depends on whether it is resident where it claims to be and whether it can satisfy the treaty's own conditions for entitlement. Both questions come back to substance: who decides, where, and with what authority. A company interposed purely to route income towards a better rate is the case the anti-abuse provisions were written for. A company that holds investments, takes real decisions about them and is staffed to do so is in a different position. Establish the answer before the payment is made, because a claim refused after the event is a cash problem and an evidential one at the same time.
Should the family office own the assets or only advise?
The two designs produce different tax outcomes and different reporting, so the choice deserves to be made rather than inherited. An office that owns assets is a principal, taxed on the returns and needing substance to support its residence and any treaty position. An office that provides services to family entities is remunerated for those services, and the pricing of that remuneration becomes the question instead. Neither is inherently better. What causes trouble is a structure that is described one way in its documents and operates the other way in practice, because the facts govern and the documents then work against you.
I have not filed for several years while living abroad — what are my options?
Both countries have routes back, and using one before they contact you is what preserves the relief. On the US side there are procedures aimed at taxpayers whose failure was not wilful, including one designed for people living outside the country, and separate procedures for late account reports and information returns alone. Canada has its voluntary disclosures programme and taxpayer relief for penalties and interest. Filing quietly and hoping is the one approach with no protection attached to it. See catch-up filing.
How do you avoid double taxation?
You claim relief once, in the right country, in the right order. Usually the source country taxes first, the residence country then gives a credit for that tax against its own charge on the same income, and a treaty caps the source-country rate. Getting the order wrong is what produces a double charge you then have to unwind. The mechanism differs by income type, which is why we map the whole position before filing either return. See how to avoid double taxation.
